THOUGHTS ON ABORTION

During college days, our class was divided to groups in order to research about abortion since this topic was one of the hottest issues that teenagers were facing even before. The groups were divided in two to stand for ANTI-ABORTION and PRO-ABORTION. We had draw lots so we can not choose our own preference. And unfortunately, we needed to represent Pro-Abortion side. As a Roman Catholic, i really did not have the appetite to defend the topic since it was against my principles in life. However, to comply to academic requirements, i needed to make a stand about Pro-ABORTION. As much as i did not want to write the pros of abortion but i needed to do so because i was tasked. I needed to pretend. So let's check the other side of the coin. Let's check on my thoughts below.

ABORTION IS NOT ANTI-LIFE, IT IS LIFE

         Life is a choice and choice is an act. It is not what people say but what we do. The choices we made now affects the rest of our lives. Individual is a person best qualified to define and create his/her destiny. Within the context of individual stand on abortion, which is the constant debate for years, women should not be forced to bear children when they are not yet prepared to be mothers or parents to carry the burden when they truly unable to support their children. Having abortion outlawed means preventing many women to achieve their maximum potentials, denied them their rights and liberty that they've known for centuries – the right to choose what is best for them. Abortion is an important choice that calls for serious consideration.

          When women denied of abortions that they seek because of religious convictions or simply abortions are against the rules of social convention, these set up a standard that clearly favors one resolution over another, restricts the reproductive choices of women, and forces some to bear children that they don't want to bear. Abortion rather than bear a child. Teenagers with unplanned pregnancy face difficult choices. If the teen gives birth and keep the baby, she will be much more likely to drop out of school, develop health problems, or have her marriage end in divorce. Unintended or unwanted childbearing have been linked with variety of social problems, including divorce, poverty, child abuse and juvenile delinquency. Some research shows that the ability of women to make decisions about their own childbearing (e.g., timing) is a necessary condition for their health and mental health, as well as for their families. Abortion is a safe medical procedure that carries relatively few physical and psychological risks and that yields positive outcomes when the alternative is unwanted pregnancy.

          Individuals are basically good, striving for growth and self actualization. Resorting to abortion doesn't mean resorting to the most inhumane act. It is a solution, a choice in which our beliefs, actions, emotions, hopes and aspirations underlies. Again, life is a choice. It is not selfish to know what is right for oneself, we all come to reality in our own time. Actions you take now are forever. Abortion is not anti-life. Abortion is pro-life, a choice, a decision and that is life.

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

Reproductive health is more than just reproductive organs and reproduction. It is how social, mental and sexual behaviors and relationships affect health and ill-health. According to World Health Organization (WHO), good reproductive health therefore implies that people are able to have a satisfying sex life and that they have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when, and how to do so. Implicit in this last condition is the right of youth to have access to information concerning their reproductive health and the right access to appropriate health care services for their medical and reproductive health needs.

Too often reproductive health has been considered as relevant only to childbearing women of reproductive years (15-44). It is true that women bear by far the greatest burden of reproductive problems and that biological, social, cultural, and economic factors increase a woman’s vulnerability to reproductive ill-health. But reproductive health has to be understood within the context of relationships between men and women, communities and societies, since sexual and reproductive behaviors are governed by complex biological, cultural and psychosocial factors.

With this world full of whims and caprices and even intricacies as a result of liberalization and globalization, adolescents often bombarded with challenges which directly and indirectly affect their decision making. Juvenile delinquencies, teenage pregnancies and early marriages, which are social stigma, are some of the problems faced by adolescents today. There are reasons that trigger youth risk taking behaviors such as socioeconomic changes as results of urbanization and modernization, improved health and nutrition status resulting at low age in menarche, earlier sexual maturity, low level of knowledge concerning reproduction and control over sexuality and ignorance about sex and family planning.

Within the realm of school, the ever-increasing number of students who engage in drug addiction, smoking, early marriages and early pregnancies as results of pre-marital sex, and other risk taking behaviors reflect ignorance and lack of sense of direction of students. These conditions consequently give unfavorable effects on student’s performance in school and influence his/her ways of behaving and relating to others and coping with life’s pressures and demands. The decisions they will made now will determine their future, thus, it is of great importance that they will have sound mind and body to have sound decisions. Adolescents are vulnerable to violence and poor health unless they will be properly equipped with appropriate knowledge, information and health services to empower them to adopt responsible attitudes and make sensible decisions about themselves and to prompt them to become responsible persons. They need too programmers to prepare them for the future reproductive responsibility and to function effectively as adults (e.g., future parents, teachers, business leaders, civic servants, policy makers and others).